Photographer: Simon Dawson / Bloomberg
Photographer: Simon Dawson / Bloomberg
Britain is “actively” working on a plan to quarantine travelers arriving at hotels to protect themselves from coronavirus infections abroad, said Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“We want to make sure that we protect our population, we protect this country against reinfection from abroad,” Johnson said, adding that Britain must consider that there is “at least a theoretical risk” that a new variant of the disease will prove immune to vaccines. his government is running. “This idea of looking at hotels is definitely something we’re actively working on right now.”
In a joint broadcast interview on Monday, the Prime Minister also warned that lifting the blockade rules too quickly could trigger a further rise in infections in Britain, amid growing pressure from members of his Conservative party to establish a time interval for the reopening of the economy.
Ministers have previously pledged to reduce restrictions once the vaccination target of nearly 15 million people considered most vulnerable to the disease has been reached, which Johnson said is yet to happen by mid-February.
The balance of the dead
However, the total death toll in the UK is likely to exceed 100,000 this week and infections are still high – albeit declining – there are growing indications that the timing of lifting the blockade is falling, possibly even in the summer.
This has alarmed prominent Conservatives, including Mark Harper and Steve Baker, who have led calls for the government to establish plans to lift the blockade and, in particular, to reopen schools, as well as the criteria it will use to do so.
“Once the vulnerable are protected, the first priority should be to reopen schools,” Harper said on Twitter on Monday.
Johnson reiterated that his government’s priority is to reopen schools as soon as possible, although he said that any lifting of the blockade must be done in a “responsible and prudent manner”.
Infection rate
“I don’t want to do anything more than reopen schools,” he said. “We want to do this in a way that is consistent with fighting the epidemic and keeping the infection rate low.”
The Johnson administration sees vaccines as the UK’s ticket to the blockade and is considering tightening border controls to try to keep any strains that could undermine the effectiveness of the doses administered. Ministers are expected to make a decision this week on whether to quarantine travelers arriving at hotels, as countries including Australia and Singapore have done.
To date, the UK has administered a first dose of vaccine to more than 6.3 million people, leaving around 8.7 million elderly and vulnerable people to be inoculated over the next three weeks to reach Johnson’s target.
The United Kingdom uses photos developed by Pfizer Inc. together with BioNTech SE and by AstraZeneca Plc is collaborating with Oxford University. A third vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. has been approved, but the first deliveries are not expected until spring.
“AstraZeneca is committed to delivering 2 million doses a week in the UK and we do not expect changes in this regard,” Johnson spokesman Jamie Davies told reporters when asked about the vaccine’s launch. Work on the Pfizer plant in Belgium means that “supply will be lower this month and next” than expected, he said, but then increases so that the total volume “remains the same from January to March”.
(Updates with details on the vaccination schedule in the last three paragraphs)